George did not seem relieved. “It sounds very tenuous to me. Do you think this will satisfy your father? What is to keep him from insisting you marry another nobleman?”
“I had hoped to have more time, but I think I can persuade him to let us marry.”
George was lost in thought for a moment, barely touching his tea.
“Then what do you propose we do now? Do you want us to announce our engagement to him?”
“Not yet. Let me prepare him for the announcement. I know how to get on his good side, and hopefully, he will come around before we tell him.”
George sat back in his chair and sighed. “I think I am happy you told Thomas. I can speak to him about us now. It was very frustrating not being able to tell him of our love. But…”
“But what?” Helena asked. She got up from her chair, and came behind George, and placed her hands on his shoulders.
He turned to look up at her. “Since we have been constrained by your father’s insistence on you marrying Thomas, we have never talked about whatwewant.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, first, I am still living at home. My father is quite healthy, and I see no immediate possibility of inheriting the estate. I have no job. I have no house of my own. How can we marry now in any event?”
Helena had not thought about those things. She had just gone along with the lovely idea of being married without considering how they would get there.
“Oh…”
“I suppose I could find us a cottage. My living is small at this point, but I suppose I could ask Father for a larger yearly allowance.”
Helena did not warm to the idea of cottage living. She moved to the window and played with the drapery tassel. “We might wait,” she mused. “And it would give me more time to work on Father. And in the meantime, perhaps you could get some sort of job.”
“A job!” George exclaimed a little bit louder than he had meant to. He became flustered.
“Many men do,” Helena said still musing.
“But… but…” He was having a difficult time finding the words he wanted to use. “You mean commerce?”
She turned to him. “Well, something like that. Maybe you could buy a ship or something. Cargo brings a good profit, does it not?”
“But you need a lot of capital to buy a ship, Helena.”
“What about railroads? I understand they have become quite the thing for investors.”
“But all that sort of enterprise requires money. Money I do not have.”
“Might your father help you out?”
“His wealth is in land, Helena. He does not have capital. He would need to sell land to raise money and that would defeat our purpose. We want to inherit the land and its living, not sell it off before we can benefit from it.”
Helena thought for a moment, then said, “Well there is my money once we marry. Might we not use some of that?”
“You cannot touch that until we are married, and we cannot get married until we have a place to establish our life.”
“Then what good is any of this?” she asked exasperated and went to the window. “I thought I was going to make everything better, and instead, I have made it worse.” And she burst into tears.
George stood, went to the window, put his arm around her, and said, “Everything is going to be just fine. You will see.”
Aunt Rosemary came back into the room after knocking. “Have you two talked everything out? I thought it best if I came to check on you.” She made her way to her chair and sat down again and picked up her pipe, knocked out the dottle and refilled the bowl with fresh tobacco.
“Mr. George, when are you going to make my niece a happy woman?” Aunt asked.
George seemed not to know quite how to answer that. The question was fraught with ambiguity. “I ah… well, we have been discussing the timing of our engagement. But it is not an easy path forward. You see…”
